Worms change people’s lives.
What??
People are keeping compost worms and experiencing impacts way beyond the benefits listed on the box.
Surprising, right?
It definitely took me by surprise as I began seeing it in people coming through The Worm Course.
People start worm composting for one of more parts of a set of logical reasons.
- For the castings
- for the recycling aspect
- to help in the garden
- to teach children
- as part of a full homesteading setup
- and maybe other reasons
To get great fertiliser for free, is basically what it comes down to.
And this is exactly what compost worms produce for us.
But something else is happening. Something I don’t think anyone foresaw coming.
I am witnessing people find levels of healing happening in themselves once they start a worm compost and begin caring for these critters.
You might be rolling your eyes right now. Or maybe you’re a little intrigued.
Or maybe you have experienced exactly what I’m talking about.
Composting with worms is a completely natural process.
The worms are natural, composting aka organic matter decaying is natural, and we are natural.
So is healing.
It’s one thing to go to the shops, buy a worm farm, a brick of worm bedding, a box of worms, and then come home and set it all up and start putting all your kitchen scraps in it, imagining something useful for the garden eventually leaking out of it.
It’s a whole other thing to intentionally setup correctly, to consciously take proper care of your worm herd, to comprehensively understand exactly what is happening in that worm composting environment, and then to expertly harvest and use that finished product.
And then it’s something else again to realise that during this process, which the first time around should be about 12 weeks, you’ve changed and life has a new sweetness to it.
A moment of silence for this unforseen gift from the worms….
The world around us seems to be going insane. Everything is happening faster and faster. Governments seem to have turned into feral monsters. The whole system appears to be slow-motion imploding.
We’ve been led astray in our honest willingness to live in and partake of “the system”.
There are many people who now realise, to one degree or another, that things need to change in a big way.
So big, in fact, that it can feel totally overwhelming and impossible to achieve.
Growing a bit of our own food in the backyard is a step towards change that does feel doable and manageable to a lot of people.
And “marketing” is so invasive and everywhere now, that it’s not hard these days for lots of people to come across the concept of worm composting and learn a bit about the value of worm castings in the garden.
Which is awesome! Because it’s completely true.
But how many of these new worm composters are 1) ending up with a mucky, sticky, sludge thing at the back door, and 2) not realising the potential for healing at a level you’d pay a therapist for, sitting right there in that sludge at the back door?
Most. Sadly.
I know that some people reading this will be laughing their heads off right now. But I also know that some people reading this either know what I’m talking about or are open to this idea and have no trouble connecting your compost worms to the idea of more gain than just the best fertiliser in the world.
Ok. So how do you get that “more gain”?
How on earth do you access the healing aspect of compost worms?
We can perhaps understand the physical mass of a horse and their ability, with that mass, to provide a source of peace and balance.
We perhaps are aware of the benefits of grounding, of having our bare feet on the grass or our hand in the soil of our garden. Long term gardeners know this well.
Have you ever just quietly sat and watched your worm compost?
Do you know what they are doing in there, and what else is in there helping them do what they do?
Are you familiar with the different behaviours of the young worms compared to the adult worms?
Have you watched a worm cocoon hatch?
From my experience of running The Worm Course and witnessing this extra, magical, healing thing that happens, I can say accessing this “extra gain” is about having a clear understanding of what is going on in your worm compost.
Its about the awareness of the lifecycle of compost worms, some understanding of the complexity of the environment of a worm compost, and the knowledge of what exactly the value of the worm castings are causing in your soil.
We can look at the worm compost from our level of existence. I am this size, they are much smaller. I ate the whole apple in 5 minutes, they’ll take days to eat just the core.
And from this level, we’ll miss the rest. We’ll still get the benefit of the castings in the garden if we follow through, but we wont realise what else can be gained. (Especially if we’re not even managing the worm compost the way nature does it.)
We need to zoom in and see the almost-microscopic and actual-microscopic details. This is where the personal healing impact begins to show up.
Once we see and comprehend those, we need to zoom out to the 30,000 foot view, and we’ll naturally see the healing that could so easily happen on a very large scale, that impacts everyone, even those who dont care to run a worm compost, if we could reach a critical mass of active worm composts….
I don’t know what that critical mass is. I’m just little me with a big vision.
What I do know is..
Compost worms are changing peoples lives, not just their gardens.
When I started running The Worm Course – it’s been called a few slightly different names along the way – I had already experienced this compost worm magic myself but hadn’t really consciously realised it.
In hindsight, I can see that’s what got me out of my shell and teaching the skill of expert worm composting to others.
This is the most I’ve said publicly about this part of worm composting, so far.
In my workshops, I barely mention it, although I do point towards it. I’m still finding my feet with how to talk about it in clear and understandable ways.
Inside the course, we all discuss it on the regular, because inside the course we are all consciously experiencing it to one degree or another.
I’m running another free workshop in a couple of weeks if you’d like to come along. Worm Composting Essentials – how to have lots of fat happy worms and endless perfect worm castings.
The registration page is here.
Thanks for reading this far 🙂 Thanks for your interest in worm composting. As “out there” as this Letter may have sounded, I really think I’m onto something big. Only more and more worm composts starting up and staying active, is going to really tell me.
So if you haven’t started worm composting yet, or if you are worm composting but haven’t realised this less obvious “healing” aspect of it, do come along to the next workshop.
Or take The Worm Course and become an expert at worm composting.
Then teach the next person.
This is how we bring about a world we all love to be an active part of.
